INDEPENDENCE is something that people in the Middle East treasure above all except their faith. Occupation, colonization, political and economic domination by foreign powers — these are abhorred by all nations but by none more than the Arabs. They hate them with an intensity that other nations fail to understand — which is why Palestine and Iraq evoke such strong feelings and emotions in Arab hearts.
Africa too prizes freedom. The winds of change that blew across the continent in the second half of the 20th century as country after country won independence from colonial masters was one of the greatest triumphs of the period. When people think about African freedom struggles, most also think of Algeria’s bitter war against the French or South Africa’s epic struggle against apartheid. But 50 years ago this week, another important African struggle reached its conclusion: Ghana became independent.
Ghana’s freedom started the whirlwind of decolonization in sub-Saharan Africa that finally ended with South Africa’s multiracial elections and freedom in 1994. Ghana can rightly claim to be the founder of modern sub-Saharan independence — although Liberia, founded as a state for freed American slaves in 1847, might contest that. But Liberia was never the beacon for African freedom that Ghana was under its first leader, Kwame Nkrumah. He positively fanned those winds of change, championing independence across the continent. The tragedy is that it all went pear-shaped. With his messianic beliefs in the inevitable triumph of socialism and African unity, Nkrumah became megalomaniac and oppressive, turning his country into a proxy for Moscow in the global Cold War for global domination and in the process ruining it; a country that at independence had been one of Africa’s richest became by 1966, when Nkrumah was overthrown, one of its poorest. It is a story that has been repeated elsewhere in Africa and there are still glaring examples. The march since freedom to present stability and normality has been for Ghanaians a bumpy one. The 1966 coup was followed by one after another; the country that was the flagship for African freedom also led the way for African military dictatorships. But if its democracy is still young, it seems now settled; as with other African states, that is perhaps because there is no Cold War to exploit and destabilize it.
But arduous though the learning process has been, the freedom won 50 years ago is precious to the Ghanaians. Ask any if they would have preferred to have kept their colonial masters and with them peace and prosperity instead of the years they have had of misery and uncertainty; the answer will be no. They may wish that Nkrumah had not been so oppressive, that he had not destroyed the country’s economy or tied himself so closely to Moscow. But they still prefer Nkrumah’s mistakes to colonial rule, no matter how benign. That is something the Arab world understands and agrees with. We congratulate Ghana for 50 years of freedom. For its next half-century, we wish it prosperity.
